Worship - March 23, 2014

Rock of our salvation,
            you who are our foundation,
                        we lift up our joyful noise.
    You are both great and good,
                 ruler above all others,
                 creator of and provider to
                                all who live upon this earth.
We come this day as those who long for
            our thirst to be quenched
                        with your living water, and
            our hunger to be fed
                        by your bread of life.
      Though you have been present with us all the time,
                                 as you have promised,
                  we invite you to dwell with us this morning,
                           opening ourselves once again
                                          to your Word and your Spirit.
You, Lord God, are a treasured guest
            at the well of this worship service.
                        Welcome.
       This we pray in the name of your Son,
                                                         Jesus,
                                                   our Christ. Amen.

reused from 3/27/2011

Acting out a Bible story
Exodus 17:1-7

The only prop needed is a staff, though a cloak to fit around Moses. Invite children of whatever age to come forward to help act out a Bible story. One volunteer is needed to be Moses. He or she will hold the staff (and wear the cloak). The rest will serve as the “elders of Israel.” The congregation in the pews will be the children of Israel.

Set the stage by briefly telling the Exodus story, how God sent Moses (have her/him stand and hold up the rod each time mentioned) to set God’s people free from slavery in Egypt. It wasn’t easy to convince Pharaoh to let them go, but Moses and God prevailed. (cheer!) In leaving, they came to the edge of the sea. Pharaoh had changed his mind and came charging with his soldiers. God told Moses to lift up his staff (have him/her do so) and the sea parted and the children of Israel escaped. (cheer) On the other side of the sea they celebrated (cheer) and then headed in the wilderness.

In the wilderness, the children of Israel started to have second thoughts about following God and Moses. Get congregation to start speaking out things like “We were better off in Egypt,” “We’re hungry, Moses,” and “Feed us!” In response, God sent bread (manna) from heaven every morning for them to eat. (cheer)

They wandered (have children “wander” up front) through the wilderness, and came to a place called Rephidim. It was not a bad place to camp, except there was no water there. Again the people started mumbling and grumbling about it. Have congregation yell out, “We’re thirsty, Moses,” “Give us water to drink,” and “My throat is parched” etc.

Moses got tired of their constant complaining. Have him or her say, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the LORD?”

The people got even more thirsty at this and started complaining against Moses (get them saying:) “Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?” etc.

So Moses cried out to the Lord, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.”

The Lord said to Moses, (have an unseen person in the back speak this in the microphone)

“Go on ahead of the people, Moses, and take some of the elders of Israel with you; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.”

Have the child playing Moses gather the other children (the elders) and head up the steps to a place in front of the worship center. Have him/her strike the floor in front of it. [If there is available a small portable fountain, have it placed on the worship center, ready to be turned on the moment the staff strikes the floor. If not, just pretend.] Drinkable water started flowing from that rock. (cheer!).

Moses called the place Massah and Meribah (which means “test” and “quarrel”) because the Israelites quarreled and tested the Lord, saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”

And that is the Bible story about how water came from the rock.

Unison Confession

	The second part of Psalm 95 refers to this episode in the life of the children of Israel in the wilderness. May these words call us more deeply into worship. Are we really any better than they when it comes to quarreling and testing and doubting God? Listen, and turn toward the Lord.
	[read Psalm 95:6-11 as a call to repentance, then say]
	In the back of your hymnal is a prayer of confession, #699. Let’s pray it in unison.

Lord, our God,
         great, eternal, wonderful
         utterly to be trusted:
                  you give life to us all,
                  you help those who come to you,
                  you give hope to those who cry to you.
Forgive our sins, secret and open,
         and rid us of every habit of thought
         that stands against the gospel.
Set our hearts at peace,
         so we may live our lives before you
                  confidently and without fear,
                  through Jesus Christ, our Lord. AMEN

Hymnal #699. Based on a prayer from
The Liturgy of St. Basil of Caesarea, 4th c.,
adapted from Contemporary Prayers for Public Worship,
ed. Caryl Micklem, copyright © 1956 1967 SCM Press, Ltd.

Returning our Tithes and Offerings

After reading Romans 5:1-11:

So wrote the apostle Paul. With this in mind, let’s return our tithes and offerings. Ushers?

Pastoral Prayer

written closer to the time (if not at the moment)

The Woman at the Well
a gospel reading
for 4 or 5 readers:
N - Narrator,
J - Jesus,
W - Samaritan Woman,
D - Disciple,
S - Samaritan
                            (D & S can be the same person)

Part 1 - John 4:5-26

N - So Jesus came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon. A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her,

J - "Give me a drink."

N - (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him,

W - "How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?"

N - (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her,

J - "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water."

N - The woman said to him,

W - "Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?"

J - "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life."

W - "Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water."

J - "Go, call your husband, and come back."

W - "I have no husband."

J - "You are right in saying, 'I have no husband'; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!"

W - "Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem."

J - “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth."

N - The woman said to him,

W - "I know that Messiah is coming"

N - (who is called Christ).

W - "When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us."

J - (pause) "I am he, the one who is speaking to you."

"I love to tell the story" (vs. 1) - #398

Part 2 - John 4:27-38

N - Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said,

D - "What do you want?" … "Why are you speaking with her?"

N - Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people,

W - "Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?"

N - They left the city and were on their way to him. Meanwhile the disciples were urging him,

D - "Rabbi, eat something."

N - But he said to them,

J - "I have food to eat that you do not know about."

N - So the disciples said to one another,

D - "Surely no one has brought him something to eat?"

N - Jesus said to them,

J - "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. Do you not say, 'Four months more, then comes the harvest'? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, 'One sows and another reaps.' I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor."

"I love to tell the story" (vs. 2) - #398
(note - our hymnal omits the 2nd of the 4 verses on the above webpage)

Part 3 - John 4:39-42

N - Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman's testimony,

W - "He told me everything I have ever done."

N - So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman,

S - "It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world."

"I love to tell the story" (vs. 3) - #398

scripture text taken from The New Revised Standard Version,
copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the
National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Dramatic reading reused from 2/24/2008

Benediction

We have encountered the living God
through the love of the living Christ.
We have been refreshed by living water.
Go now to live in the hope this encounter inspires.
Be water bearers to a dry and parched world,
knowing that the God of love and hope
goes before you and with you always. Amen.

by Joanne Carlson Brown, pastor
Tibbetts United Methodist Church
Seattle, Washington
from Ministry Matters